I have always liked to dance and have always been a happy person. Thank God I am not a high-strung person. I have always liked going out and traveling. I have taken advantage of everything offered to me . I have also had my moments of stress, like when my dad died. But God has given me the grace and spirit to be able to take difficult things in. That is why I have had a happy life. And I have liked helping people very much. When I was young I visited people in hospitals – those who had no visitors – to feed them their meals. I took meals to operating rooms. If someone needed surgery I would look for a friend surgeon to operate on him/her because perhaps it was someone who did not have any money. I did all that and felt pleased with how I helped.

My mom knew that I liked all that, but she never told me to do it. She would tell me to be careful because I was young and I could get a disease. I never took that into account. I liked doing charity work and helping the poor. I would try to help anyone who needed help. That has been my life and I feel pleased with it. I have grown older but continue to do the same. I am 89 and have been a volunteer here at the 30th Street Senior Center for 21 years, where I can help people and give them anything they need.

What does beauty mean to you now?

It is very different now. Young people do not dress up. In my time people dressed up. One tried to have a good appearance. There were other fashions. I was someone who never wore pants. I got to the US and women wore them, but not me. To this day, I do not like them.

If different, why have your ideas changed?

I wake up and then I have breakfast. But the first thing I do (is dress myself up) because one wakes up and looks at herself in the mirror and gets disappointed. All my life—given the advice of my mother, God keep her—from the day I married I would always be dressed up when my husband came home. In the street he could see many beautiful girls dressed up and when he came home, my mom said, if he saw his woman not dressed up, he would be disappointed. So that was my mom’s advice. She told me that when your husband comes home he should always find you attractive and not be disappointed. Otherwise in the street he sees so many beautiful girls and suddenly he gets home and his wife is not well dressed?!

My husband died when I was 64. He was my husband for life.

I have always dressed up and I feel uncomfortable when I see people who don’t, especially young girls. But they have youth’s beauty. An older woman needs to dress up because she no longer has the beauty of youth. That is my advice. I see women who say, “Why should I dress up since I am already old?” That is a mistake.

I feel satisfied of how I have lived my life. God has blessed me and encouraged me. Above all, to date and at my age – blessed be my Father – I have never had surgery. The only time I was in the hospital was when I had my children. So until – now thanks be to God – I have not been there for any other reason.

When I was 25, I lived in Puerto Rico. Beauty meant being attractive to be able to conquer and feel proud. With the little I had I tried to put on my best. To stand straight and show my waistline. I had beautiful straight hair and tried to take good care of it. I was very shy. I did not put on much makeup but always used perfume. My dress style was not eccentric. My dresses were different, simple and made by hand; my mom had them sewed by a dressmaker and they fit me well. I liked bright red and green, but now I like soft colors and not red. White, gray, and pastel colors.

What does beauty mean to you now?

Beauty means keeping elegant and showing off my figure. Hair always taken care of; now I need to dye it and take better care of it. I like buying clothes and shoes. I like dressing simply but well. Simple makeup as well.

If different, why over time have your ideas about beauty changed?

Moneywise there is also a difference because in earlier times one could not afford luxuries and now it is different because one has the possibility of having better things. Fashion has changed but I am not an eccentric dresser, nor do I put on fake eyelashes. The difference is that before I had money to buy clothes. I am always the same…I want to take care of myself, to feel beautiful, but not to make someone else feel good but to make myself feel well.

Well, beauty is not as interesting as they make it to be. Character also counts….to be able to speak with other people easily. I have always liked dressing up and now too, although I am an old woman. My hair was always very straight and I would do perms and dress up in the style of the time, dresses down to my knees and beautiful blouses.

My family was poor and so I did not enjoy any luxuries but more or less we could eat well. We had a good time. We went to the movies and to dances behind dad’s back. We had a great time, with my little sisters. At that time we lived in Guadalajara. Until I was 17 I lived in Mexico and then I came to live here. Because here lived my grandma and my brother. Then I found work in a sewing factory and could enjoy life because I worked and had money and could help my dad because he had a big family. Then I packed cookies (as a job) and took care of my children at home, because I was married

How important is beauty to you now? If different, why have your ideas of beauty changed over the years?

Fashion was very different here, people wore hats and fur coats.

But it has now changed so much. Now everyone wears pants, including me, after exercising. With diabetes I cannot go to dances anymore because there are too many temptations, cakes which I cannot eat. Before I could not go because they would not let me and now because of diabetes.

My children take me out to the movies. They take me to the beach in Sausalito.

We all related to the media and to movie stars. We all emulated them, trying to look our best. In my early 20s, we were at war. It was WWII, and I enlisted as an army nurse. When I enlisted, they were encouraging nurses to join the army. So they said they would give you a free overcoat and a Revlon cosmetic bag.

Cosmetic bags at that point were very popular. They were like little suitcases with a mirror inside, maybe 14” by 18”. Revlon produced the cosmetic bags. We as a group of nurses, every place we traveled, the cosmetic bag went with us. In certain places, we had to climb up and down a rope ladder to get on a ship, and the cosmetic bag was in one hand. In the cosmetic bag, I’m sure we had rouge, lipstick and powder – those were the things we used then. Maybe hairbrushes and bobby pins. That cosmetic bag went everywhere.

In terms of beauty, you were just trying to look your best all through life. Afterward, I raised a family and then worked as a nurse. You were so busy, but you just tried to look your best all the time. I don’t think there are any special beauty tricks. I never plucked my eyebrows or used mascara. I tried mascara but I didn’t like the feel of it.

In those days working as a nurse in the hospital, we wore white uniforms and white oxford shoes. I wish that was true today. I think the clothing nurses wear is very demeaning to their status and what they do. We wore white uniforms all the time, working 48 hours a week and then having a family on the weekend.

In those days, we didn’t have many clothes…maybe one or two dresses, a couple of skirts and that’s it. High heels were always important to me. When I was young, I was considered to have flat feet. My mother took me to a clinic where they used to strap your feet with adhesive. Then you get fitted for special arches to put in your shoes.

When I reached 16 or 17 (at nursing school away from home), the first thing I did was to go out and buy a pair of pumps. In the summer, the pumps that were popular were either black and white, navy blue and white or brown and white. The tip and back were colored. The rest was white. Spectator pumps, we used to call them. When you wore your spectator pumps, you really felt like the cat’s meow.

I never used much make-up. In the 1960s, everybody was piercing their ears. As nurses you were not allowed to wear jewelry. It was very strict. My children and their friends encouraged me, and so I pierced my ears myself which was crazy. I tried to hide the piercing with my hair when I came into work. My boss scrutinized me and saw it. I was reprimanded. I wasn’t allowed to wear the earrings but I left something in (to keep the hole open).

When I was young, we all wanted to look like Lauren Bacall. She wore her hair on the side in a page-boy. That didn’t quite work for me. In the hospital, you had to wear your hair shoulder-length. I was a brunette. As the hair started to fade, I decided to use a tint in my hair because I thought my hair was mousy. I’ve been using a tint ever since. Maybe that’s how I get away with being percepted as younger.

What does beauty mean to you now?

As you get into your 80s, your eyebrows start to disappear. I won’t pluck my eyebrows but I draw them in a little bit. I use eyeliner, and I think that enhances (although it smudges during the day). As far as my skin goes, everyday after I shower, I use lotion on legs and arms. I’ve been using aloe vera gel on my face. I don’t use nail polish because when you work in art, it’s really hard on the nails. If there’s anything I hate, it’s seeing chipped colored nail polish.

If different, why have your ideas about beauty changed over the years?

My youngest daughter is really into fashion. I think being around young people has kept me more contemporary. I want to be stylish. I want to be a knock-out if I can. I don’t buy that many clothes. I work with what I have.